In April 2021, Garry Cogan felt a slow, burning pain move steadily higher through his right arm. It was the start of a major heart attack that doctors warned could shave decades off his life without timely triple-bypass surgery.

Nearly two years later Cogan is still waiting for an operation from Britain¡¯s overwhelmed health service, one of millions to suffer as it buckles under the weight of an aging population, a lack of investment and the COVID-19 pandemic.

¡°It¡¯s made me feel very uneasy in myself, very tentative about what I can and cannot do,¡± said the 62-year-old warehouse worker from Colchester, southeast England, who has reduced his working week to three days out of fear he could trigger another attack.